Bestow Curse bestowing non-necromancy effects?

There are a number of threads discussing "alternate" uses of the necromancy spell, bestow curse. Though it hasn't happened (yet) in any of those particular threads, I have had several of my curse ideas shot down in past threads. The reason?

People didn't consider them to be necromancy effects.

I was told things like "bestow curse can't curse a person's hair to purple because that would be a transmutation effect" or "bestow curse can't make the fighter think he is a wizard because it's not an enchantment effect" or "it can't make a womanizer see ugly women as beautiful and beautiful women as ugly since that would be either enchantment or illusion."

I'm posting this in the rules forum because I want to know if there really is a rule of some kind preventing this level of creative fun, or if it's just a bunch of uptight GMs online who are so incompetent that they can't handle their players making up the occasional cool curse, so they feel they have to place arbitrary limits in order to keep their illusion of control.

Also, do you personally think such curses would be okay, even coming from a necromancy spell? Why or why not?

The GMG insanity section suggests using bestow curse to give one of the listed insanities.
Also there was a good dragon article with suggested curse effects. I'll try to find the issue if you interested.
All alternate curse effects are essentially house rules and that's why you get flak.

I'm posting this in the rules forum because I want to know if there really is a rule of some kind preventing this level of creative fun, or if it's just a bunch of uptight GMs online who are so incompetent that they can't handle their players making up the occasional cool curse, so they feel they have to place arbitrary limits in order to keep their illusion of control.

Well, yes and no.

The only rule is that it has to be something that isn't more powerful than the curses listed, and (tacitly) is subject to the approval of the GM. Thing is, when you leave a rule open to GM approval, it's going to be governed by the whims of the GM. So it's legitimate (albeit super boring) for the GM to say, "Well, it's going to need to be a necromancy-themed effect."

I think those curses are okay. I also think those GMs are being kind of uptight by restricting it in that way. I also think that they're not out of line by being uptight. Differing tastes gonna differ, man.

Mind-affecting spells should be enchantments and not bestowable by necromancy spells. Stuff like making someone afraid of their own shadow (obviously an enchantment effect) should be kept to the enchantment school with similar effects like Cause Fear.

Otherwise you could curse people with anything... say cursing them to see only darkness, which is obviously an illusion effect (or maybe an enchantment if you flavor it so that they are simply forced to keep their eye's shut).

Dragon #348
The article is called bestowed curses . Pg.34 by Jonathan drain

Some pretty vicious effects ...
losing all weapon and armor proficiencies.

Cowardice(will save vs curse DC to not be shaken for duration of combat) and another sv when damaged to resist being panicked.

Socially ineptitude (-6 on a bunch of social skill checks)

Etc.

Stuff like making someone afraid of their own shadow (obviously an enchantment effect) should be kept to the enchantment school with similar effects like Cause Fear.

Uh.

Cause Fear

School necromancy [emotion, fear, mind-affecting]; Level antipaladin 1, bard 1, cleric/oracle 1, inquisitor 1, sorcerer/wizard 1, witch 1; Domain daemon 1, death 1; Bloodline abyssal 1

Fear

School necromancy [emotion, fear, mind-affecting]; Level antipaladin 4, bard 3, inquisitor 4, sorcerer/wizard 4, witch 4

Fear: Spells with the fear descriptor create, enhance, or manipulate fear. Most fear spells are necromancy spells, though some are enchantment spells.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECUrlnXCqk&feature=related

I was told things like "bestow curse can't curse a person's hair to purple because that would be a transmutation effect" or "bestow curse can't make the fighter think he is a wizard because it's not an enchantment effect" or "it can't make a womanizer see ugly women as beautiful and beautiful women as ugly since that would be either enchantment or illusion."

The only problem I see with your curses is that they don't do enough bad. If all your curse does is change hair color, you have created a permanent non-dispellable disguise spell.

They don't seem terribly necromantic... I will agree.

Necromancy spells seem to have a pattern to work with undead, negative energy, death of course, and some specific mind effecting, particularly overloading the fear of death part of the brain (at least, that's why I think fear spells are in necromancy).

So curses, being necromantic, should involve mortality somehow. It does narrow their focus, but you can still be creative.

So, a curse that made a person's hair turn vibrant purple because it's sucking the life out of body. Every day the subject's con drops by 1, (minimum of 1), and can't naturally recover the ability damage until the curse is removed.

Making someone think they're someone else is really more in the enchantment department. Don't really see a way to make a fighter think he's a wizard... Oh wait thought of something! A curse that you target a living subject and a dead subject. The curse 'overlays' the ghost echo of the dead into the living subject's consciousness. Maybe a 1/3 chance that the subject acts according to the echo instead of normally. So part of the time he thinks he's that dead wizard, or that he's a bugbear, or that rust monster depending on what you swap in.

For the shallow Hal curse, you could make him afraid of beautiful women (mechanically, let's say women with a cha of 11+ that are visible make him shaken, being touched DC 18ish will makes him frightened). You wouldn't be able to swap perceptions straight up that I can think of.

Initially, I was thinking like those uptight GMs you mention. But after reading some of the suggestions so far, my thoughts were "sometimes you just need the right fluff to make something work".

Your starting post seemed unreasonable, but the fluffy stuff I very much liked and would allow a few of them if i were GM. Didn't like or would not allow all that has been posted so far, just some of it.

Fluff it up :)

This spell will allow you to do enchantment like stuff with it but is a higher level. I think there are spells like cause fear that are necromantic.

This allows enchanment effects from a trigger but is also fear related.http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/ultimateMagic/spells/curseOfDisgust.html #_curse-of-disgust